Stream Entry, part one
“Circumambulate: Jung’s description of how one might approach a dream. Rather than diving into its content head first, figuring out its meaning with the logical intellect, one tries to “walk around it.” with care and respect, much as worshipers might circumambulate a sacred temple. ”
Dear friends,
The following essay has not exactly been a labor of love. In fact, it feels more like labor than love. While the entertainer in me, has always followed, as if by instinct, Emily Dickinson’s sage advice to “tell all the truth but tell it slant” (perhaps a poetic description of circumambulation), my inclination from childhood on was to “let me entertain you.” Unfortunately, such a tendency stands at cross-purposes with the sobering task of describing an incredibly complex doctrine such as stream entry.
Also, as we study the classical Theravada Buddhist teaching of the four stages of enlightenment, we will be faced with the age-old question of faith that has divided the East and West for well over two thousand years. A more precise way of saying it is, “we are faced with the age-old question of faith.” One cannot be born into a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or Jewish family and brush off its core beliefs like tiny specks on the shoulder. A belief in reincarnation has been part of the Asian mind (both Buddhist and Hindu) for at least three thousand years. It is as if the eastern mind intuitively accepted the idea of the soul’s migration from life to life, not as a theory but as evident - as obvious as night follows day, winter changes into spring, and rain falls during the monsoon season. In the West, we’ve had elements of a belief in reincarnation, from Plato to the Gnostics, but the relatively younger Christian idea eventually agreed that we only have this life to live. Strangely enough, while our Christian mindset believes that the soul is immortal, the soul only gets the span of one life to learn the lessons to be learned. Then the body dies and the soul migrates to its reward in heaven or its punishment in hell, that would be, for eternity. And there is no suggestion that the soul learns in heaven or in hell. Basically, it just sings Amazing Grace for 10,000 years or suffers for 10,000 years, and more. No wonder Neitzche announced that God is dead.
Coming from a Christian family in Tennessee, my bias against reincarnation, has been deeply ingrained. For most of my life, I never could say that I believed in reincarnation. I simply did not disbelieve in it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s brilliantly crafted expression, “the willing suspension of disbelief,” perfectly described my attitude about things we can neither prove nor disprove. I always found a measure of “cover” in his words, particularly when meditation students would ask troubling questions about my belief in the Buddha’s teaching of reincarnation.
But perhaps the singular characteristic of a human is that he or she has an uncanny ability to change in some fundamental way over the course of a life - not to mention over lifetimes. Trees, dogs, humans and chairs change in appearance as they age, but the human mind, that which names but cannot be named, seems to have the potential to change in a radical way. This is astonishing news for one who can hear. The human mind can grow from hatred to love, from taking to giving, from delusion to insight. Perhaps this essay comes from some unnoticed, gradual shift, where the willing suspension of disbelief no longer feels quite right to me. One begins to suspect that all the significant events, and spiritual friends who have come into our lives were not merely an accident of birth, geography or circumstance.
So let us begin:
Near the end of a one month retreat In Italy in 2008, the teacher, U Vivekananda, gave a talk on stream entry. I had heard the same talk from “Vive” at the Forest Refuge one year earlier, as well as from Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and U Pandita, among other excellent teachers at Insight Meditation Society in Barre. In addition, I had given my own beginner’s version of the doctrine at Long Beach Meditation retreats as far back as twenty years ago.
During a question and answer period after U Vivekananda’s talk, I asked, “What are the odds that most of us in this room probably experienced stream entry in a previous life, if not in this one? The question had not suddenly popped out like Athena from Zeus’s forehead; I had been pondering it for a long time.
Was my question coming from hubris? Did it seem as if I was taking credit for wining “best meditator of the year” award? It certainly did not feel that way to me. The question seemed almost rhetorical. Here we were, perhaps some twenty of us, having come from far away countries, sitting in silence, meditating hour after hour, day after day, for one solid month. A number of people at this retreat had already sat with Vivekananda at his center in Lumbini, Nepal, (as would I one year later). So what were we? Groupies? Masochists? Suffering from some unreal fantasy about enlightenment? What was the force or attraction that drew us to take part in such an intense and difficult practice, an experience which surely required sacrifice from all of us, on so many levels? In response, U Vivekananda did not utter his famous “Of Course!” Instead he gave a somewhat enigmatic nod, perhaps in keeping with Bodhidharma’s teaching that good fortune in this present life is probably the fruit of a life well-lived in a previous existence. Taking credit for something you have not earned is at least unskillful, not to mention un-buddhist.
The question remains: What is the force that keeps some people returning to inner work (both psychological and spiritual) throughout their lives? Theravada Buddhism gives a most plausible and elegant answer: Once activated in the human psyche, that unknown force is known as stream entry. It’s both a noun and a verb. One who has entered the stream is called a sotapanna, the Pali word for “stream winner.”
In Theravada Buddhism, sotapanna describes the first stage of enlightenment. A sotapanna has joined quite an exclusive club. She or he is no longer a “worldling.” Just as a lotus flower can rest on turbid, murky water, a sotapanna is still of the world, but no longer in the world. The difference between not being in the world, and yet of the world will become clearer as we continue, although I suspect that most of us understand the difference intuitively.
How can one spot a sotapanna? Not easily. He or she looks no different from you or me, Indeed, there is a wonderful story about Upaka who was meandering down the road one day, as the Buddha passed by. Upaka did not have a clue that this was a Buddha. I suspect that the same story could be told about Jesus. In fact, far from being a fully enlightened being, a sotapanna can be seriously “unholy,” not only in appearance, but in behavior. We will discuss this shortly. By the way, one who thinks he is sotapanna, may actually be “sortanarcissistic” personality disorder.
So - ta - pan - a
Three crucial things happen to a sotapanna, but before naming the three, we need to add the word “fetter” to our expanding vocabulary.
Fetter: “a chain or manacle used to restrain a prisoner, typically placed around the ankles.”
In the Theravada scriptures, it is said that there are Ten Fetters which keep us chained to an endless cycle of being born, growing old and dying; coming back in another existence, and then being born, growing old and dying. The new ego, having forgotten every thing it learned, insists that this next life will be better! “Give me another chance! Let me in the ballgame, Coach! ” So, once more, it lands on the game board and is born, grows old and dies. Notice that I have avoided mentioning the Buddha’s news about suffering.
The first fetter that is removed from the ankle of a sotapanna is:
1) Skeptical doubt
As I pondered the issue of doubt. I decided to google it. Lo and behold a photo of my college roommate and spiritual friend, Phillip, appeared, along with his article “Lost in Doubt?”
Was this an accident? Perhaps, if you believe that spiritual friends come into our lives by chance and coincidence. But that singular moment certainly helped assuage my doubt and resistance to writing this essay.
Doubt is a fetter that can block psychological or spiritual development. Recognizing its insidious effect on faith and confidence can be a crucial step toward inner freedom. Doubt is so damned seductive when it creeps into the mind like a fox in the henhouse. Its voice sounds perfectly sane and reasonable: “What’s the point of doing this?” it softly asks. “Why make all this effort and spend hours trying to write an essay on stream entry for how many people, 10? You are certainly no scholar, and who would understand it anyway?” Doubt is a siren song that can lure any sturdy craft, young or old, toward disaster on treacherous rocks hidden just below the surface of our consciousness. But with the mere recognition of its presence, it usually slinks back into its dark corner.
In Theravada Buddhism, the pali word, vicikitsa, translated as “skeptical doubt,” specifically applies to Buddhist practice. For instance, a sotopanna does not doubt the story of a man who, after long years of acetic practice, finally gave up clinging to rites and rituals, fasting and self mortification, and simply sat down under a tree, vowing to sit there in complete surrender, silence and concentration until his mind was liberated from the blindness of ignorance. A sotapanna seems to have some inner awareness that accepts the Buddha’s story and the Dharma he taught, as truth. A sotopanna does not doubt that all human minds have Buddha nature and the potential for awakening.
But is vicikitsa restricted to a Theravada practitioner? Isn’t doubt the great enemy of psychological as well as spiritual work? And is the sotapanna club exclusive? Is the “stream” restricted only to a Theravada Buddhist (no admittance to Mahayana Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama and my favorite Ch’an master Ta Hui)? What about a Christian who has not the slightest doubt about the divinity of Christ? No admittance to a Jew, Hindu or Muslim whose practice is based in some inner knowing that we call faith?
This may be similar to the rhetorical question I asked U Vivekananda in Italy.
The second fetter to slip off the ankle of a sotapanna is:
2) Attachment to rules and rituals
For the first time in its history, our country has been going through the confusion and drama of having a Trickster President, a man who breaks every rule and ritual within sight. (The Trickster, is a Jungian archetype). Perhaps it seems blasphemous to entertain the thought that this man could be a stream winner, but, in fact, Donald Trump provides an excellent entry into a more nuanced understanding of why Enlightenment, from the Theravada perspective, is a gradual process that unfolds in stages over lifetimes.
Theravada scriptures tell us that, a sotapanna is only released from the first three fetters. He or she still is still afflicted by greed, hatred and delusion. Let me repeat it. Even a person who has experienced the first stage of enlightenment, and has entered the stream of the Dharma, still hates, is still greedy and is still deluded. The Theravada monk, Nanavira Thera, calls it “invariance through transformation.” Gradual changes occur through the course of lifetimes.
A parish priest could be born with a strong spiritual inclination, strong enough to lead him to the priesthood. Perhaps he might say, “I knew I wanted to be a priest, even as a child.” He might give truly inspiring sermons, sermons that touch the hearts of his congregation in a meaningful way. He might still have unconscious lust. He might be a pedophile.
Understanding the gradual process of stream entry allows us to hold the tension of opposites. “If this is true, how can that be true?”
Chogyam Trungpa, the great Tibetan teacher, a first class rule-breaker within two Tibetan lineages, literally changed countless lives with the depth of his understanding and insight. How could he be enlightened, an alcoholic and womanizer at the same time? This type of question has troubled literally thousands of devoted students of Buddhist teachers, Christian pastors and Yogi masters. But what seems paradoxical becomes transparent from the perspective of a soul in the process of transformation through lifetimes.
A sotapanna can only reincarnate a maximum of seven lifetimes. Mahayana Buddhism does not agree with such a limitation, because a seven lifetime limitation would put the Bodhisattva’s career out of business eventually. (This slightly sardonic sentence was borrowed from a Theravada monk.) But that “Buddhist family” disagreement is another story for another essay. There are some acts that a sotapanna cannot do. For instance, a stream winner cannot kill his or her father or mother, nor can he or she do harm to a Buddha or create a schism in the great Buddhist Congregation. These are not mere Buddhist laws; they are simply impossible acts for a sotapanna.
Another thing that a sotapanna cannot do, is to be reborn in a lower animal or hell realm. For most of us non-Buddhists, this is not very big deal. While we may worry about hell, few of us worry about coming back as a snake or a goat. In a later part of this essay, I will explain why not being reborn in a lower realm was a huge issue for Nanavira Thera, who seriously contemplated suicide in the last years of his life. All schools of Buddhism teach that the human realm is the optimal place of existence for spiritual development, and this is the realm to which a sotapanna returns.
This simple poem by Paul Carus sheds light on this subject of attachment to rules and rituals
“By ourselves is evil done.
By ourselves we pain endure,
By ourselves we cease from wrong,
By ourselves become we pure,
No one saves us but ourselves.
No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path:
Buddhas only show the way. ”
Carus’s poem may be specifically about Buddhism, but it perfectly describes the attitude of an individuated adult.
In other words, ten Hail Mary’s and one Our Father will not get us into Christian heaven, nor into the Buddhist tusita heavens for that matter. No amount of fasting or observing the Ten Commandments or enduring a long Buddhist retreat is a ticket into stream entry. The idea that a Buddha, Christ, Moses, Krishna, or Muhammad can save us from our own personal Shadow is an idea that keeps the child in us frolicking on in spiritual kindergarten. Teachers may show us the way, but a sotapanna realizes that only he or she can walk the path.
3) Personality belief
The third fetter is much more than a speed bump; it’s a road block. The pali word for the third fetter is sakkaya-ditthi.
Sa -ka-ya- dit - ti
When I reread my notes from Lumbini, before posting them here, the one thing that struck me from page to page was how tenaciously I clung to some fantasy of constancy. Nothing ever remained the same, day after day, for two months. At first, the days were bone chillingly cold (particularly for old bones!) eventually turning into very hot days with dive bombing mosquitos in the meditation hall. There were some peaceful sits, long boring ones, and a few transcendent ones (which I called “path sits”). I was miserable, and I was happy. I had what seemed to be “break-throughs” convincing me that I had finally reached some level of understanding. And then each morning, as I trudged toward the meditation hall, I knew that nothing had really changed. This reality never ceased to amaze me. Clearly, I saw the the incessant change and wrote about it. Yet my attachment to some fantasy of a constant “me” prevailed against the strong winds of reality like an immovable Gibraltar.
The Rock that never changes in us is sakkaya-ditthi, a profoundly hardwired belief in personality. We watch everything changing around us: peaceful protests and violent protests, statues of formerly revered leaders being pulled off their high pedestals, Black Lives Matter and Proud Boys, chaos and change everywhere, but one Rock remains. We still wake up every morning, convinced that this is precisely who we were last night.
To be continued.
